Mail carrier delivered aloha to many on her route

The postal worker who died in a road accident made friends at several addresses

Niu Valley resident Susan Mathewson lost a newfound friend Saturday when her mail carrier was killed in an accident.

Caron Lee, 50, struck a lamppost with her mail truck and was thrown onto the sidewalk of Halemaumau Street in East Honolulu. The lamppost fell on top of her, police said. The crashed occurred at 11:53 a.m. An autopsy was performed yesterday, but a cause had not yet been determined.

"Just the other day, she parked her truck and was telling me about her life and the changes in her life" before moving from San Francisco to Hawaii, Mathewson said about Lee.

A week before her death, Lee stopped to thank Mathewson for listening, and both exchanged compliments, calling each other nice and kind.

"We became friends," said Mathewson, adding that her death "is just haunting."

Mathewson is one of many postal customers on Lee's delivery route who adored the letter carrier and mourned her death, along with her colleagues.

"She went the extra mile," Mathewson said, delivering boxes to her front door. "She was wonderful. It's really a sad loss to the post office."

Lee worked nine years in Hawaii with the U.S. Postal Service -- the last 18 months out of the Hawaii Kai post office near her home, postal officials said. She had also worked with the postal service in California.

Mail carrier Michelle Tumacder had a rough day yesterday as she brought Lee's undelivered Saturday mail that was in her truck to her customers. "Most of them were in shock," she said. "Everybody loved her."

They described her as kind, sensitive, unassuming, quiet but efficient, someone who would go out of her way to help others and "loved the kids and knew most of them by name," Tumacder said.

Several of Lee's customers stopped at the Aina Haina Post Office yesterday, sharing stories about her.

"They just loved her as their carrier, and they're going to miss her. You get attached, like family," postal employee Valerie Mar said.

Gabby Rodrigues saw the truck had crashed into the lamppost, which had been sheared off at the base. He found Lee on the sidewalk with "the pole right on top of her like a cross," and somehow moved it off her, he said.

He said another person took her pulse and found Lee still breathing and called 911. She also called a doctor who came before paramedics arrived and performed CPR.

Another witness said that another mail carrier, who saw the accident, stopped and had to unload Lee's truck, then finish her own route.

Rodrigues was upset yesterday that workers reinstalled "the pole that killed her," still stained with blood, rather than replace it.

Customers and fellow postal workers and friends left flowers and balloons at the accident site.

"She's just a very kind person," said a fellow carrier as she began to cry. "If we ever asked for help -- anything you need, she was right there."

Another one of her customers said she and her family were saddened by Lee's death.

"She was so sweet. Whenever she saw us sitting in the yard, she would deliver our mail to us under the canopy," said the woman, who did not want to be identified. "She would always say something nice to us."